Sealed container



' Dec. 27,- 1938. v

J. p. REIFSNYDER SEALED CONTAINER 7 Filed Sept. 17, 1935 INVENTOR 5 fi. )fE/Fj/W E/Q 1 Y- ATTORNEYS;

BY v

WITNESS- 7 W i Patented 21 1938 v i v 2, l4l,556

UNITED srA Es PATENT orricr.

James D. Reifsnyder, New York, N. Y., assignor Lily Tulip Cup Corporation, .New York, N. Y.,

a corporation of Delaware r Application September 1'7, 1935, Serial No. 40,891

g 1 Claim. (Cl. 229-515) This invention relates to sealed containers, and with the desired commodity and the cover inmore particularly to containers having removable serted in place, melted sealing material'such as closure means which are sealed in position on the paraffin is then applied to the upperedge portions containers by a fusible sealing material. of the container and to the peripheral edge of the An objectof this invention is to produce a concover where it joins withthe container. 1' have 5 tainer of the indicated type having its closure found that by proper control of the temperature so sealed in place by a fusible'sealing material of the paraffin which is thus applied that the that air pressure or vacuum will be held within paraffin which was first coated on the container the container during the shipping, handlingvaud fuses sufiiciently without flowing to enable. the

merchandizing of such container. Other objects two masses ofparafiln to combine together and 10 i of the invention and of details associated there-- 'form a homogeneous mass. When the mass with will appear from the following specification. hardens the cover is in effect solidified with the The invention is particularly adapted to concontainer and a seal is provided which will enable tainers made of paper or other fibrous mathe containers to hold air pressure or vacuum over i 1 terial which are used as a means for. packing an extended period without leakage and which and shipping commodities which are to be sold in will stand up under the rough usage such conthis form. to the consumer. Containers of this 1 tainers receive during shipping, handling and type are usually frusto-conically shaped, the base merchandizing without becoming inoperative. portions thereof being of smaller diameter than The nature and utility of the invention will be the mouthg or top portions and their size usually better understood from the following description 20 depends upon the weight of the commodity that taken in conjunction with the drawing in which is to be packed therein; The containers may be the invention is shown embodied in a paper contreated with paraihn or other suitable materialtainer of the aforementioned type for the purcapable of sealing the pores of the fibrous mate'- poses of illustration and in which Fig. l is a side rial of which the containers are constituted and elevation, partly in section, of a portion of a sealrendering them impervious to fluids. Usually ing device illustrating the manner in which the these containers are closed by a disc cover which sealing material is applied to the container; Fig. is supported on a shoulder provided on the con- 2 is a perspective view, partly in section, of a tainer bodies or is snugly fitted into an internal filled container after the cover has been sealed 0 groove provided adjacent to the upper edges of in place; Fig. 3 is an enlarged detailed sectional f the containers. As it is necessary with certain view of a portion of a container before the cover kinds of commodities to maintain them under has been sealed in position and Fig. 4 is a similar pressure or in a vacuum until they reach the conview of a container after the cover has been sumer, it is desirable that the. covers of the consealed in position.

tainers in which such commodities are packed be Referring more particularly to the drawing, the 35 sealed in position so no fluid can escape from or reference character l0 designates a frusto-conienter into the containers until they are opened cally shaped container made from fairly heavy' by the consumer. I am aware that it has been paper stock in a manner well known in the art attempted to hermetically seal such containers by andhaving a bottom spaced up from the bottom 40 smearingparaflin or other materials around the. edge of the container as is usual in containers of 40 peripheral edges of the covers where they join this type. The upper edge portion of the cup is. withthe containers but I have found that such slightly greater in diameter than the main body seals are unsatisfactory where the contents of the portion of the container so that a shoulder is containers are packed under pressure or in a vacformed 'therebetween, such shoulder furnishing uum and are not strong enough to successfully a seat for accommodating a disc closure I3. The 4 withstand the. handling thatsuch containers upper edge portion of the container above the undergo during the shipping, and merchandizing shoulder is curved inwardly, such curling operaof the same. tion having been continued. until a bead i2 is.

A perfectly sealed container is obtained in acformed along the upper edge of the container, the cordance with the present invention, by first proouter edge portion of the cover disc l3 being 50 viding the upper edge portion of the empty confixedly received within the recess ll formed betainer with a coating of paraflln or other suittween the bead l2. and theinner shoulder pro.-

able material which exte'nds'down to the lowest videdat the top part of the main body portion of point where the cover thereof is in .contact with the container. Prior to 1 placing the cover disc 15116 container. Afterthe container has been filled l3 in poition and securing it in place by the 55 ,1

peripheral edge of of the sealing .terior surfaces a coating of paramn or other suitable material which may be applied by passing the container through a bath of the material. When the coating material is applied in this manner, I find that i outer surfaces are covered, asshown in the drawing, 'by the inner and outer coatings l4 and i5 respectively}, If, however, the commodity to-be packed in the container does not require that the body portion of the container be sealed, the coating" material may be applied only to the upper edge portion of "*the container or may be applied only to that portion of the inner surface of the container which will be in contact with the the cover. In the latter case, the coating material may be applied with a brush instead of passing it through rial,

allowed to harden.

The container is then ready to be filled with is to be packed therein.

container and the main body portion thereof.

The cover I3 is usually made of heavier paper stock than the container proper and is preferably impregnated with parafiin or other suitable material so that it is impervious to fluids. As a result of such treatment, a thin covering or film material is provided on the exof the cover. The upper edge portion of the container may then be curled or rolled in any suitable manner so as to form the bead l2 which looks the cover securely in position against the shoulder of the container and renders that portion of the container sufficiently rigid to withstand the strains or pressures to which it .will be subjected during the handling, shipping and merchandizing of the container.

' The filled container is then subjected to a sealing bath of paraflln or other to. hermetically seal the contents of the container. In carrying out this step of my invention, as well as the initial coating step previously described, I may utilize a sealing apparatus such as is disclosed in my United States Letters Patent No. 2,119,720 issued June 7, 1938, and sufilclent of which is shown in Fig. 1 of the drawing for the purpose of describing this operation. For utilizing this apparatus for applying the second coating of sealing material to the filled container, the

The extent to whichthe con-v 2,141,556 bead i2, the formed container is provided with enlarged head portion of the holder, designated generally by, the reference character i 1,

through a downwardly projecting portion on the a bath of the mate- This initial coating of the container is then suitable material bottom end portion of the container is inserted ture that will fuse underside of the bearing, thereby enabling a roller follow the upper surface of the track 24 as it changes from a horizontal position to an inclined position to dip the conripheral edge portion of the cover disc are dipped into the container, such portions of the covered container being evenly covered by the sealing material as the container is rotated about its central axis during its passage through the bath.

The paraffin bath is maintained at a temperathe coating material originally applied to the container sufficiently without flow {to enable the parainn now applied on such original coating to combine therewith into a homogeneous mass and also to enable the contacting layers of the original coating to combine together into a homogeneous mass. Thus it will be seen that the paramn added as a result of this step will combine with the original coating on the outer surface of the upper end portion of the cup and the bead i2'to form a thick homogeneous layer of sealing material on the outer sides of such portions as indicated by the reference character 25 in Fig. 4 of the drawing and also to form an annular homogeneous mass of sealing material inthe seam between the bead I 2 and the outer terial on the outer surface of the cover disc. Those portions of the original layers of coating material whichare in contact in the bead l2, between the head 12 and the upper surface of the edge of the cover disc, between the side edge of the cover disc and the inner side of the upper edge portion of the container and between the under surface of the edge of the cover disc and the container shoulder will also be fused together by the heat of the bath into a homogeneous mass, as is indicated by the reference character 21, such at the edge of the shoulder at 28. sealing material has hardened, the cover is in effect solidified with the container and a seal is provided which will enable the conair pressure or vacuum over an extended period and will satisfactorily withstand relatively rough usage. The thickness 6f the sealing material along the outer upper edge portion of the container will be approximately twice as thick as the original layer of sealing material while the thickness of the sealing material at 28 will be appreciably greater. The thickness or the sealing portions may, f course, be varied by varying the period that t e container is subjected to the bath. The thickness of the seal, however, along the contacting surfaces of the container which are not reached by the sealing material of the second bath depends ,upon' the amount of coating material original bath.

Having thus described my invention in detail with reference to its preferred form, it will be I to those skilled in the changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention and I intend in the appended claim to cover such changes and modifications as are within the scope of the invention.

I claim:

A seal for a paper receptacle which has been submitted to a treatment of paraffin prior to the insertion of a commodity therein, comprising a receptacle body having at its open end an end sectionoflset outwardly to provide an interior annular shoulder, a flat closure disc seated on said which has been applied in the shoulder, the portion of said end section disposed outwardly from said flat-disc being curled inwardly upon itself so that the peripheral edge portion of the disc is subjected to clamping pressure directly effective between said shoulder and the curled-in part of said end section and in alignment with the side walls of said receptacle art that various other parts body, andparamn fused together from a point adjacent the inner edge of said shoulder and between such shoulder and the edge portion of said disc, outwardly to the outer edge of said shoulder, around the edge of said disc and then, inone direction, between the edge portion of said disc and the under portion of the curled edge, and, in another direction, between a part of said end section and the curled-in edge thereof and those of the interior surface of said end section which are curled against each other, and augmented by supplemental fused parafiln between the non-contacting'parts of the curled-in portion of the end of the peripheral edge portion of the disc and around the outer surface of the curled edge of the body to a point beneath the outer part of said shoulder, the said portions of fused paraffin being connected together and forming an integral mass which fills in and seals the spaces between the receptacle body and the disc in the regions specifled.

JAMES D. REIFSNYDER. 

